OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[Drew]

Was Vista really rushed to market? It was being tested as Longhorn forever, it did have a need for the 64 bit OS.

The way the conversation went, I thought Coop said that 7 was rushed to market the same as Me was.

[Topweasel]

The way the conversation went, I thought Coop said that 7 was rushed to market the same as Me was.

Nah it only seems that way because Microsoft wants a replacement for Vista soon.

Windows 7 has been in development for almost a decade. In 05 when they noticed that they were not going to get Longhorn (Windows NT6) ready any time soon they took most of the interface and driver models they had worked on and applied them to to Windows NT5 (2000 and XP) giving us Vista. Its why Windows 7 is similar to Vista, the funniest part is that people are more likely to adopt Windows 7 then Vista even though the difference are small.

All Vista is an attempt to not have 8 years without a new consumer OS to sell. Much like ME, which was released because people where not going to be ready to adopt Windows 2000. Cept I think Vista has gotten a bad rap where ME deserved it.

[-Deborah-]

I agree with you, Top.

[yooperman]

I went from windows 95 to windows 98. It's so fast, I can hardly keep up with it.(:

[Drew]

It's funny why they think they have to rush to get something out. I was ok with XP for another year or so while perfected the full version of 7 (Vista +). MS needs to realize that they control the pace; people are buying their computers.

Meanwhile, Mac needs to realize they could be in MS' spot if they would bring their fucking prices down a little.

[Topweasel]

It's funny why they think they have to rush to get something out. I was ok with XP for another year or so while perfected the full version of 7 (Vista +). MS needs to realize that they control the pace; people are buying their computers.

Meanwhile, Mac needs to realize they could be in MS' spot if they would bring their fucking prices down a little.

Its like the Taurus. Its so popular and everyone keeps buying, if you wait long enough they will tire of it. If you wait till then for to come out for a replacement you end up with the Five Hundred. They needed buzz, your statement of the Apple with the MAC OSX furthers that point. If a MAC was more attainable their penetration would skyrocket, not because of Vista but because people were on their 3rd XP machine and didn't feel they were getting anything different for their expenditures of money.

Microsoft didn't need Vista for themselves in the short term, their OEM partners did. Funny thing is I am pretty sure a lot of the issues people had with Vista people would have had with Windows 7. UAC wouldn't have changed without it and the manufacturers wouldn't have had 3 years to develop drivers. Windows 7 is are savior not because its great, but because it isn't Vista, even if it is.

[unknown lions fan]

In my years of laying out technology strategy and leading teams of programmers in the development of front-ends (I'm not a programmer) I always looked at the balance between complexity and the power of options it presents the user versus simplicity and the assumptions it makes as to what the user wishes to accomplish.

From my perspective, the reason I've never liked the Apple OS (and now Vista) is because they don't give me enough control over what I want to do. It's good to have a "happy path" that makes all the assumptions about what the user wants to accomplish, but power users want to have all their options available to them. In the quest for simplicity, they dumb down the software to the lowest common denominator and either eliminate all the options or hide them so as not to confuse the novice, thereby frustrating the more sophisticated user.

[unknown lions fan]

As an example, when Windows tried to "simplify" the Windows Explorer (I can't remember if it was in '98 or XP) to accommodate those who don't understand the file system, they made it clunky and awkward for those of us who do. Fortunately, they gave us the option to use the "classic view."

Think about how many people you know that don't understand the file system at all. They don't know where their stuff goes, or where anything is saved. Mostly, they count on their "last documents opened" pulldowns in their applications. From my view, the dumbing down of explorer has done nothing to help these folks understand their file system, but has only further obscured it.

[froot loops]

I'm not sure another year would perfect any OS. The bugs only reveal themselves when you have a lot of users with a lot of different applications pounding the OS.

[Panoptes]

While giving consideration to buying an auto GPS system for a long vacation in July, I ran across this tidbit:

GPS System Could Begin To Fail Within a Year

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/165126/gps_system_could_begin_to_fail_within_a_year.html

[Malto Marko]

This looks interesting...I am told it will launch may 19

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...r-1678109.html

Wolfram Alpha has been designed with professionals and academics in mind, so its grasp of popular culture is, at the moment, comparatively poor. The term "50 Cent" caused "absolute horror" in tests, for example, because it confused a discussion on currency with the American rap artist.

Hmmmmmmm. Does that mean that the relatively uneducated individuals that are expecting the computer to do the work for them might have a problem?

While giving consideration to buying an auto GPS system for a long vacation in July, I ran across this tidbit:

GPS System Could Begin To Fail Within a Year

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...in_a_year.html

Interesting............

[LightninBoy]

In my years of laying out technology strategy and leading teams of programmers in the development of front-ends (I'm not a programmer) I always looked at the balance between complexity and the power of options it presents the user versus simplicity and the assumptions it makes as to what the user wishes to accomplish.

From my perspective, the reason I've never liked the Apple OS (and now Vista) is because they don't give me enough control over what I want to do. It's good to have a "happy path" that makes all the assumptions about what the user wants to accomplish, but power users want to have all their options available to them. In the quest for simplicity, they dumb down the software to the lowest common denominator and either eliminate all the options or hide them so as not to confuse the novice, thereby frustrating the more sophisticated user.

I agree with that totally and have the same opinion of the Media Player interface. Your beef though is with Media Player, which although shipped with Vista, is not Vista. The same Media Player with the same oversimplified interface is available on XP too.

Taken as a whole, the Vista interface does not get in the way of this power user. The built in search alone is a huge productivety boost compared to clicking through the Program Folder hierarchies. And if you really wanna take it to the next level - try doing things from PowerShell. ;-)

[Coop]

Deb - never heard your answer as to why you had to constantly reformat while running XP. I bought a brand new system in 2004 - ran off the original build in April 2004 until my hardware died last May (2008) - either bad ram, mobo, or combo finally caused a failure. To me, that says alot about XP and stability. Then again, I ran it carefully - Admin rights only when installing, Antivirus, and malware protection at all times, with quality components.

[-Deborah-]

If I knew why, I doubt I'd continue to have the problem, Coop. My problems weren't related to viruses.

[unknown lions fan]

What you say may be true LB - I haven't updated the media player on my PC for some time, as I hardly ever use it. I did run into one other complication helping my sister with her Vista that took a good bit of digging to figure out, but it was a change in how they named the function that thwarted me.

Maybe I don't have enough experience with it to hate it yet Given my alternatives, I'm sure I'll be using it (or perhaps 7) in the next few years...